“Someone asked below who the schoolteacher is who is going to save us. Someone else inquired if that person is ‘MES.’

I’m doing my best. A word of advice this afternoon. We must stop trying to play games with one another. That game is called “One-Upsmanship.” Liberals and Conservatives are both guilty of playing it.

Changing that mindset to another more productive and positive one would not only change the caliber of the minds and spirits of individuals, but it just might save our world because people are not only interested in playing that game with others here on this blog, but too many people throughout the world, and too many nations throughout the world, continue to play this childish game.

I call refusing to play psychological power-play games with others – equivalent to playing a mental chess when the other is playing a mental checkers, or any other childish One-Upsmanship game – raising consciousness.

Yes. On a public blog, there is a historical figure who is particularly impressive to me. Another poster on this blog attempted to goad me into a “battle of the wits” about this historical figure. Even though I surmised the intent of this fellow poster, I nevertheless gave a brief response.

A third poster wrote to me on that blog that I would have been better to have “played chess” instead of “checkers” with this other person by remaining silent. That way, if I had seen ahead, I would have realized that that would have given me the power position through my silence.

My response to this third poster was, “I do not play games of any kind.”

I had responded to the second poster that even though I knew that that poster was goading me into a battle of the wits, I did not care about that. I try never to decide interactions with others based upon cliched and stereotypical thinking as to what tactic would give me more “power” in the relationship with another. The third poster had thought that I was playing “checkers” (by not following given social norms which required my silence), and the second poster was playing “chess” with me in goading me to respond, successfully. Both of them did not realize that I respond when I feel it necessary to respond, however others may view my decisions in social interactions. My decisions regarding social interactions are not based on one-upsmanship, but stating truth as I see it. Moreover, I will decide when I respond, and when I will not, based on reasons of my own, and occur of a given moment and a given situation, which are unique.